


Dacnomania

by Syntax



Series: Writings of Xarxes [6]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Adoption, Child Abandonment, Experimental Style, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, crossposted from tumblr: thespleenoflorkhan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21614122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntax/pseuds/Syntax
Summary: Alta adopted Aventus Aretino.  What else could she do?  Leave him to walk alone to the orphanage in Riften, with nothing to accompany him on the way there but the memory of what he did to his mother’s remains?
Series: Writings of Xarxes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1284701
Kudos: 9





	Dacnomania

**Author's Note:**

> still porting things from tumblr to ao3

Alta adopted Aventus Aretino. What else could she do? Leave him to walk alone to the orphanage in Riften, with nothing to accompany him on the way there but the memory of what he did to his mother’s remains? 

She walked slowly into the house at first, having only entered because there was a murderer on the loose in Windhelm, and she was concerned if maybe the boy everyone said was performing the Black Sacrament either had something to do with the deaths, or knew anything about them. Alta didn’t begrudge him for mistaking her for a member of the Dark Brotherhood—she was wearing their colors after all—but told him as gently as she could that while she was not an assassin, she would be willing to help him out.

She asked him if he’d had something to eat recently. He hadn’t. She asked if he’d had something to drink recently. He hadn’t. She asked if he’d had anything at all.

 _Snow,_ he said eventually. _I’ve mostly just been having snow._

Alta clicked her tongue and pulled out some dried berries and figs for him to eat, then opened up her waterskin and asked if he knew where the kettle was. They shared a meal of dried fish and hard tack, washed down with lavender blossom tea, before any talk of assassins or orphanages or “kindly” old ladies could ever take place. She’d chided Aventus, likely, since eating too much too quickly when one has eaten too little for too long can do terrible things to the body, but he seemed to be fine.

Alta walked Aventus out of his empty home and set him up with room and board in Candlehearth Hall for a month while she traveled down to Riften to see what could drive a child to pray to the Night Mother. She introduced Aventus to the innkeeper, made sure he’d get meals and baths and whatever else he would need while she was gone, and went on her way with the promise of coming back as soon as she could with news that the orphanage would see better care, whether Grelod was dead or not. Alta was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that Grelod was truly as cruel as her kenning was kind, but that didn’t necessarily mean the woman had to die.

Though she would, indeed, end up killing the old bag, albeit completely by accident. She’d gone into the orphanage intending to speak with Grelod and discern for herself what kind of character the woman had. She ended up slapping the woman when Grelod openly admitted to beating and starving the children, intending on calling her out for such poor treatment of the hold’s most vulnerable—only to call for the guards and the priests of Mara when Grelod fell like a sack of potatoes and didn’t get up.

The children were ecstatic. The Jarl was less so. It took the better part of three days for Alta’s charges to go from murder to assault to a justified act against an abuser that was much worse than previously reported, but three days was better than three years in prison. Alta rushed as quick as she could back to Winterhold, picking up sweets to apologize to Aventus with since she’d promised to come sooner.

They were stale by the time she arrived in Candlehearth Hall. He didn’t seem to notice.

Within the next few days, the Butcher had struck again and again. Alta would catch him after a quick investigation, and pen a letter to the Vigilants to prepare room for yet another artifact of great and terrible power that she’d recovered during her travels. She prepared to say goodbye to Aventus. She headed back to the inn and shared another dinner with him of dried fish and hardtack, with lavender blossom tea to wash it down—and found she could not say goodbye at all.

After much starting and stopping and backtracking and sighing, what she ended up saying was, _I’ve got a big empty house back in Solitude that I don’t know what to do with. Would you like to come live there with me?_

And he did.


End file.
